


Hitting the nail right on the head (or the head on the nail)

by aroseandapen, rychuu



Series: Danganronpa V3 AU: We're a Two-For-One Special [1]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Because Shuichi's non-reaction to Kokichi suffering from a concussion makes me sigh, Canon Rewrite, For a friend but also entirely self indulgent, Gen, OC is Kokichi's twin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 19:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13577853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroseandapen/pseuds/aroseandapen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rychuu/pseuds/rychuu
Summary: In a re-write of a scene from the chapter 3 investigation, Kurochi Ouma finds his brother in the hall lying face-down in his own blood.





	Hitting the nail right on the head (or the head on the nail)

**Author's Note:**

> Some things to note for this fic:
> 
> -I guess this was inspired by the Kokichi-has-a-twin theory, but not actually really related to it (I haven’t even done any research into it actually! And as of right now I’m not interested in jumping into theories and stuff).
> 
> -Mostly written as I was watching someone play through Chapter 4. As of posting this, I just finished the Chapter 5 trial.
> 
> -Kurochi is the Ultimate Cryptographer in this. Not relevant in this drabble, though.
> 
> -Written for Ry! tricky-leader on tumblr, who dragged me into hyperfixation hell with this amazing boi.

“I’m going to go back to Angie’s lab,” Kurochi announced, not expecting any response as he turned back to the door. Perhaps he could check the scene again once more—there had to be some clue that pointed towards a victim that wasn’t a vengeful spirit risen from the dead.

“Ah, I’ll come with you—I think I’m done checking on everything in here,” Shuichi said, to his surprise.

“Yes, Angie’s death is the one we should be investigating, it’d be wise to do another look around.” And Maki as well, to his  _dismay_.

Not that he could do anything about it. He shrugged, nudging open the door with an air of nonchalance so as not to betray the tension that he felt. Whenever he looked at Maki, all he could see was her hand around his brother’s throat. Unfortunately, she and Shuichi were investigating together, and Kurochi didn’t think he’d get anywhere if he snapped that no, she could _not_  continue her investigation that would undoubtedly benefit them all during the class trial. So he kept his sighs to himself, and stepped into the hall—

—to find a body on the floor.

His breath tore from his throat in a ragged exhale, the air stolen from his lungs and the heat from his veins. For a good minute, he didn’t understand the scene before him, because it just couldn’t be real. It couldn’t. First Angie… then Tenko… then… but… it  _couldn’t_  be—.

A gasp behind him as Shuichi and Maki exited the room startled him, scattered thoughts crashing together like on stretched elastic bands, leaving his mind more tangled than before. His head spun, eyes fixed on the body, the rhythm of his heart in his chest a rapid staccato against his rib cage.

“Kokichi!” He heard his own voice call out his brother’s name, not conscious of saying it himself. The scene looked unreal; the room spun around him. Blood. Kokichi. Kokichi’s blood. On the floor. He gaped, mouth working open and closed without another sound escaping it. Dead, his brother was—.

The bloody face rose from the floor. Kokichi’s trademark grin beamed up at them, like blood didn’t drip down the sides of his face, like a small pool of crimson hadn’t gathered where his head had been resting, and Kurochi didn’t know whether he wanted to cry or shake his brother silly for scaring him like that.

Worse still, Kokichi sprang up from the floor, graceful as ever. His laughter rang out as if he’d told some hilarious joke, but none of them mirrored his actions. Kurochi couldn’t move, feet rooted to the ground. Part of him thought that it had to be a hallucination, his shock forcing his imagination to deny the truth and conjure the image of his newly deceased brother up and on his feet. His eyes fell to the floor, to the blood staining the wood. He felt sick.

“Did I surprise you? Were you going to scream and cry in terror?” Kokichi laughed, carrying on like nothing happened.

_Yes you did, you bloody **jerk**_ , Kurochi wanted to say, but the unintentional pun stirred a queasy feeling in his stomach. He couldn’t find his voice past the lump in his throat. All he managed was a hard swallow and wide-eyed stare while he waited for the tilted room to right itself. Was the room even askew? Everything in the damn world was screwed up, culminated in his own brother’s death during this hellish game they’d been thrust into. In that moment, nothing felt real to him. Kurochi could vanish from the face of the earth, and it’d still go on indifferent to his plight.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

Kurochi jumped at Shuichi’s voice, head whipping in the direction of the two others in the room. In his surprise, he’d forgotten that Shuichi and Maki had accompanied him out into the hall. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the static building up inside and finding it impossible to do. Only one thought managed to surface in the hopeless mess of thoughts and anxiety in his mind; if Shuichi saw Kokichi move and grin then Kurochi wasn’t seeing ghosts. Kokichi really was alright.

His gaze drifted back to the blood spattered against the floorboard. Not alright, actually. That didn’t seem any level of ‘alright’ to him, but Kokichi was alive for certain, and perhaps that was blessing enough in the middle of a killing game.

When Kokichi didn’t immediately respond, Kurochi’s eyes snapped back to his brother’s face. He looked faint, swaying side to side. A tight ball formed in his chest as he rushed to Kokichi’s side with quick shaky steps, placing a steadying hand on his brother’s shoulder. He could feel Kokichi trembling under his touch with a motion so slight that he wouldn’t have noticed if not for the physical contact.

“Kokichi?”

His brother started. He dipped his shoulder, stepping to the side to subtly pull away from Kurochi’s touch. The grin returned to his face with greater force than before, as if to hold his dazed expression at bay. “Oh, sorry… I’m just a little light-headed from the blood loss. Yeah this is real blood…”

Silence punctuated his admission. Kurochi felt his heart twist in his chest, letting his hand fall to his side, but he didn’t say anything. Shuichi spoke up first, hesitance coloring his tone. “…Okay, so what are you doing?”

An innocent question, and yet a hot flame of anger ran through him. Just like that, Kokichi’s injury no longer mattered, even while the blood remained shiny and wet on his face. Kurochi whirled on Shuichi, face twisted. For the first time since they woke up in that godforsaken place did he raise his voice at the other, shoving his words at him with a sharp bite to them. “Oh you know, he’s only bleeding from a head wound, what else!”

That seemed to shame him. Shuichi shifted in obvious discomfort, not daring to meet Kurochi’s glare, gaze fixed on Kokichi instead. Good.

“It’s fine, Rochi!” Kokichi waved him off with a giggle. “I just got curious about something, so I decided to search the empty room next door. Th-then suddenly…”

Once again the grin dropped from his face, his mouth a stiff line as a queer look shadowed it. Kurochi stepped closer on instinct, hand once again on Kokichi’s shoulder with a firm grip on it. Not giving his brother a chance to back out, he reached out with his free hand to push his hair back to check on the wound. Right there on his forehead, no longer bleeding but still fresh. It took a beat longer than last for Kokichi to try and move away again, a hand at his wrist peeling Kurochi’s from his forehead. His hand came away red and sticky.

It took a moment for Kokichi to find his train of thought again to continue. “I-I stepped through the floorboard.”

“You stepped through the floorboard?” This time Shuichi had the witherall to sound concerned, although Kurochi didn’t know whether from worry for Kokichi or for the problematic floorboards themselves. As angry as the thought made him, he at least understood that much. The floorboards fit so well together that stepping through any of them shouldn’t be possible. It made for a dangerous place to walk.

“Geez, that got me good.” If Kokichi couldn’t find it in him to pretend, the pain must be terrible. With the shudders that ran through him, Kurochi feared that Kokichi really would collapse under just the weight of his hand. He clenched his hands into fists, resisting the urge to grab his shoulder again, lest he’d be rebuffed for a third time. “Cuz of this, I-I tripped and fell pretty hard.”

When Kokichi drifted back into a dazed silence, Maki’s cold tone echoed in the quiet hall. “If you’re going to lose consciousness, do it after you tell us everything.”

Kurochi never felt the urge to strike someone as much as he did in that moment. He wanted to punch that condescending expression right off that girl’s face, especially when Kokichi immediately forced a smile back onto his face and apologized for his own faintness.  _A head injury_ ,  _he has a concussion_ , Kurochi wanted to snap at her. Even if she hates his brother’s guts, she could at least show some basic human empathy for a guy that looked like he was about to pass out.

He forced back the desire. Punching the Ultimate Assassin could only end poorly for a tiny, thin-armed boy who literally couldn’t throw a punch to save his life. He swallowed back the sensation of his own uselessness rising in his throat like bile, remembering how easily Maki had wrapped her hand around his brother’s throat. In the end he couldn’t do anything, just like he couldn’t now.

All unaware of how dearly Kurochi wanted to hit Maki, Kokichi told them what had happened, that a crosspiece under the floorboard was missing and caused his foot to fall through when he put his weight on it. Before he could tell them anything more than that, however, the school bell rang out, signaling the end of the investigation.

Maki looked more disappointed than she had any right to at that. “I guess… time is up.”

“Aw maaaan, it’s cuz of you guys, I didn’t have enough time to check on something…”

Kurochi sent his brother an incredulous look. When they’d come out into the hall, they’d found Kokichi face down on the ground. Although he’d played it off like a trick, Kurochi couldn’t help but think that he hadn’t intentionally laid down there waiting for someone to pass him by and think that a third person had died. Especially if he’d wanted to check on something. Kurochi didn’t think that he could’ve gotten to it regardless of their interference.

“What were you trying to check?” Shuichi asked at the same time as Kurochi said, “Maybe you should’ve been getting your head checked.”

“Aww Rochi, that’s mean! I actually wanted to re-research the seance again, so I brought this document with me.” Kokichi held up The Caged Child, waving it before he flipped open to the page with the seance instructions on it. The three of them shuffled closer to look down at the book with him. “But unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything new that could be used as a clue. Kiyo perfectly reenacted the seance as what was written in the document. He drew his magic circle the same exact way as in this picture.”

Kokichi tilted his head, either thinking about something or fighting back the effects of his head wound. Kurochi wished that he’d been present during the seance, just so he knew firsthand what had happened during it. For the most part however, he was glad that he hadn’t been. Not that he thought that ghosts were real, but maybe it was better not to test out his theories with the supernatural like that.

And Kurochi wasn’t keen on being there when Tenko died.

A beat passed, and Kokichi continued, “Not only that, he used the same exact tools too. Nothing suspicious about this whole thing. Well, I wanted to check the finer details but…” Kokichi grimaced. “I-I’ll tell you about it later… a-at the… class trial so… see ya there…”

With unsteady balance, Kokichi turned and began to make his way down the hall. His footing seemed off, the effects of the blood loss obvious in each shaky step. Kurochi lurched forward, making it to his brother’s side before he could get too far on his own. No way was he going to let him collapse on the way without anyone around to help him back up or to give two shits about him in the slightest. Neither Shuichi nor Maki seemed inclined to care in any case, so Kurochi would have to do that all himself.

Yet they only made it a few steps more before Shuichi cleared his throat, calling out, “Ah… Kokichi?”

Kurochi glanced back over his shoulder while Kokichi slowly turned about to face him. Shuichi wore a sheepish expression, one which Kokichi returned with another forced grin. He wanted to be away before his entire facade broke, Kurochi knew, and Shuichi was making that difficult here. “Yes, Shuichi?”

“Are you… going to be ok?”

A brief silence followed the question. Kurochi looked to his brother to see that a contemplative expression had overtaken his face, mouth pressed into an oddly serious line. Or perhaps that was because of the concussion as well. But after the moment passed, a mischievous smile lit up his eyes. Kokichi shrugged and tucked his hands behind his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll die before I even get to the class trial. Nee-heehee, then you’re going to have to figure out who killed Angie without my adorable face there. I hope you cry for me, Shuichi—except no, that’s a lie. An evil overlord like me doesn’t need tears from those on the opposite side of the law, but thank you for your concern Mr. Detective. I’ll see ya soon!”

Kokichi’s grin turned sly just before he spun back around. The movement had him teetering on his feet, losing some of the effect of his little speech. Kurochi reached out to steady him, and Kokichi managed not to topple over. Once he righted himself, he continued down the hall with greater purpose, steps heavy and echoing in the empty hall. “Either in the class trial, or together in  _Hell_!”

As the brothers made their retreat, Kurochi heard Maki speaking to Shuichi, telling him to just ignore Kokichi. She wouldn’t care whether he died or not, even if he was completely innocent. At least Shuichi had proved him wrong just now, even if he had to be properly scolded before he voiced his concern. There was hope for him yet.

Kurochi steered his brother into the bathroom on their way out. Time to get him cleaned up and to check on his injuring before Kokichi went and hurt himself even more.


End file.
